Cubieboard6 was announced earlier this year with the same form factor as Cubieboard2 – which was popular a few years ago – by replacing Allwinner A20 with Actions Semi S500 quad core ARM Cortex A9 processor. CubieTech is about to launch Cubieboard7 based on the same design, except for the processor upgrade to the pin-to-pin compatible Actions Semi S700 quad core ARM Cortex A53 processor. I’ve also found out Cubieboard2/6/7 can be connected to DVK522 expansion board to provide easier access more I/Os like LVDS, RGB LCD, VGA, and so on. Let’s start with the Cubieboard7 (CB7) preliminary specifications: SoC – Actions Semi S700 quad core ARM Cortex-A53 processor with Mali-450MP4 GPU System Memory – 2GB LPDDR3 Storage 8GB eMMC flash SATA 3.0 port for 2.5″ HDD/SSD implemented via USB 3.0 switch and JMicron JMS578 USB 3.0 to SATA controller. micro SD card slot up to 32GB Video Output – HDMI 1.4b up to 1080p60 according to specs, but datasheet …

Banana Pi BPI-R2 is a multimedia router board powered by MediaTek MT7623N quad core processor with 2GB RAM, 5 Gigabit Ethernet ports, up to two SATA ports, two USB 3.0 ports, HDMI output, and I/O headers. The board is not for sale yet, but the company has recently released the source code with U-boot and Linux 4.4.70, as well as a datasheet for MediaTek MT7623N processor. The source code can be found on Github, so let’s see if we can build it: After a couple of minutes, the build would end with: For the very last step, it asks you to login as root / sudoer, which it should not do… But we end up with the images, so at least it builds: MediaTek has also been active by committing patchsets for MT7623 to the Linux Kernel Mailing List, so mainline Linux is an eventual possibility for BPI-R2 board. We just don’t have a clear view of what works and …

We discovered ASUS Tinker Board powered by Rockchip RK3288 processor earlier this year via some slides hidden in a dark corner of the Internet… ASUS has been incredibly quiet about it, but as the board has finally started to sell in Europe on sites like CPC Farnell UK, Proshop (Denmark), or Jimm’s (Finland) for the equivalent of $57.5 without VAT or $69 including VAT, and more technology sites have started to write about it. So people have been buying the board, and one even uploaded an unboxing video. One interesting part is the the top comment from the uploader in that video: Currently, a £55 paperweight as I can’t seem to find a link to the OS image anywhere. And indeed, ASUS appears to have launched a board without any support website, firmware image and documentation. Maybe that’s why they are quiet about it. But after using some of my voodoo search skills, I finally found firmware images for the …

SinoVoip has recently released PDF schematics for both of their Banana Pi boards, namely BPI-M64 board powered by Allwinner A64 processor, and BPI-M2 Ultra board based on the latest Allwinner R40 SoC with an on-chip SATA interface. For most boards on the market, this should not be news, but SinoVoip does not always release schematics in a timely manner, so you may want to be noticed when it happens: BPI-M64 schematics – https://bananapi.gitbooks.io/bpi-m64/content/en/bpi-m64schematicdiagram.html BPI-M2 Ultra schematics – https://bananapi.gitbooks.io/bpi-m2-ultra-open-source-single-board-computer/content/bpi-m2ultraschematicdiagram.html The clear benefit of BPI-M2 Ultra is the presence of a SATA connector NOT implemented via a slow USB 2.0 to SATA bridge, but instead directly through the SATA interface of the R40 quad core processor. As for BPI-M64 ($46), it can be compared to Pine64+ with 2GB RAM and a WiFi module ($39), and despite the higher price it does come with some benefits like adb over OTG working, it is equipped with an 8GB eMMC flash instead of just a …

Microchip launched MPLAB Xpress online IDE and board earlier this year, and as part of the launch they offered 2,000 free boards. I joined the program and received my board. The keyword for the board is “Xpress”, as you should be able to get started in mere minutes thanks to the operating system agnostic online IDE that works with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. That also means you don’t need to install any other tool. All you need is a web browser. MPLAB Xpress Board Let’s start by quickly checking out the package, board, and offline documentation. Once you open the package, you’ll get the board, a folded sheet of paper for the schematics, and some information on the package itself with the pinout diagram, and a quick start guide explaining that the board acts as a mass storage device, and all you need is a web browser for programming it. The part has two parts: “Application” and “Programmer”. …

Allwinner A64 is likely to become quite popular as it will be used in PINE A64 board, Olimex open source hardware laptop featuring A64-OLinuXino board, and some low cost tablets. We’ve already got some documentation such as Allwinner A64 datasheet and user’s manual, but AFAIK, there was no source code released for the board. The good news is that you can now download Android 5.1 SDK and Linux source code on Baidu with four files available: lichee_A64_A5.1_V1.0.tar.gz – Linux source code android_A64_A5.1_V1.0.tar.gz– Android 5.1 SDK android_prebuilts_A64_A5.1_V1.0.tar.gz – Some pre-built binaries for Android A64硬件资料.zip – Documentation including the datasheet, product brief, and user’s manual which we’ve already got, but also some hardware with reference schematics, PCB layout files, and BoM for an Allwinner A64 tablet. That’s about 7.4GB to download, and apart from the documentation, the download is not quite complete yet, so I could not look into the details of the release yet. Support CNX Software – Donate via PayPal …

Espressif teased about their ESP32 WiSoC with WiFi and Bluetooth LE a few weeks ago in a letter addressed to developers, but did not release that much information. The company has now released some documents in the forums (registration required) concerning ESP32 module including PCB processing requirement, schematics and PCB layout, and bill of materials. The very first modules will actually be based on ESP31 processor, which only slightly differs from ESP32 with some swapped pins. The BoM is pretty small with several capacitors and resistors, one inductance, a 26 MHz crystal, ESP31, and a Gigadevice flash. The schematics have been designed with Orcad 16.6, so if you don’t have the program, you can read the schematics with Orcad 16.6 Lite, which is free to download. I’ve also printed the schematics to a PDF file. I’m not sure how to open the .pcb file which should be the module’s PCB layout. Support CNX Software – Donate via PayPal or become …

Next Thing CHIP computer powered by Allwinner R8 module, also referred as “the $9 computer“, had a very successful crowdfunding campaign having raised over $2,000,000 from nearly 40,000 backers. When launching an electronics products on a crowdfunding campaign, many companies claim their device will be open source, only to disappoint once the perks actually ship, and Next Thing made the same promise, except they appear to have delivered as shown in their latest update “Holy C.H.I.P! It’s C.H.I.P!!!” showing the first production samples, and providing links to hardware design files for the Alpha version, as well as buildroot, U-boot and Linux source code. All resources can be found on docs.nexthing.co, but let’s check what they’ve released so far. Hardware design files on Github include: A Bill of Materials (BoM) Schematics in PDF and DSN formats PCB Layout in BRD and PNG format Pinouts for U12 and U14 connectors Mechanical files in DXF format So everything appears to be there for …